The World Cup kicks off on Thursday with five weeks of head-to-head football!
As it does every four years, it will create great excitement for viewers of the good game who are not too interested in the racism of team football.
And while it’s easy to get behind the likes of England and Scotland, what happens when they go out early? Is that the end of the 2026 World Cup? Not at all. Adding a second team to follow can keep things interesting until the final stages. Before you know it you’ll be staying up until 4am to watch Iran take on New Zealand!
So how do you have fun, and engage everyone in the office, down the pub or in your WhatsApp group? With a sweepstake of course!
It can be difficult to organize them, especially when it comes to the distribution of groups. Everyone wants Spain or France over Curacao or Jordan, right?
Well, let 101 Great Goals take the stress out of the situation with our sweepstakes generator.
All you have to do is enter the names of your friends, or colleagues, into the generator and it will spit out results, delighting some and infuriating others!
Don’t worry if you don’t have 48 players as more teams will be allocated to one player if necessary.
Best of all, it’s free!
How the World Cup sweepstake works
The format is simple. Everyone pays the same amount, teams are drawn randomly, and the winnings come out of a pot. The winner takes the prize. It’s an easy way to get an entire office or group chat that caters to groups they wouldn’t normally watch.
Most teams choose one of two payment structures. Winner takes all clean: the pot goes to whoever drew the winners and that’s it. Tiered payouts spread the money around, with a share for the champion, a small share for the loser, and usually less for each losing semifinalist. Tiered keeps a lot of interested people deep in the tournament, which is often very interesting.
Many sweepstakes come with a wooden spoon: a small prize, or loss, because whoever is the first person in the group to be eliminated. It gives a very bad drawing toy.
Running a sweepstake with 48 teams
2026 is the first World Cup with 48 teams instead of 32, and that changes the statistics. In a typical office or group chat sweepstake of 10 to 20 people, everyone ends up with two to five groups per group rather than just one. This generator works for that and divides the groups as evenly as possible.
If some people contribute more than others, you can give them a bigger share. Just set the number of the groups next to their name when you create the drawing, and everyone divides the rest.
Holding a few groups is the best part, really. You have more to follow in the group stage, more opportunity to find a contender, and more to talk about if one of your lot crashes in the first week. Some of the teams in the pot are obvious prizes, such as Argentina, France or England. Some will probably be home before the strike. Not knowing what you’re going to get is the whole point.
Sweepstakes prize ideas
- Entry fees. £1 to £5 a head is the usual range for an office sweepstakes. Enough to make it relevant, cheap enough for everyone to join.
- Winner takes all, even if the categories are included. The tiered division, with 60% for the winner, 20% for the finalists and 10% for each semi-finalist, keeps many people around for a long time.
- Non-cash prizes. When money changing hands sounds strange, play for a bottle of something, a daft cup, or bragging rights up to the next Euro.
- A wooden spoon. A small prize or penalty for whichever team comes out first. No one wants to win.
World Cup 2026: key facts
- Dates: 11 June to 19 July 2026
- Host nations: United States, Canada, Mexico
- Locations: 16 cities, 16 stadiums
- Format: 12 groups of 4, 104 in total
- To open the same: Mexico vs South Africa, Estadio Azteca, 11 June
- Finally: MetLife Stadium, New Jersey, July 19
- The first four countries: Cape Verde, Curacao, Jordan, Uzbekistan
- Notable absences: Italy, out of the third tournament in a row
- Previous winners in this category: France, Spain, Argentina, England, Germany, Brazil, Uruguay
Teams for the 2026 World Cup
Group A
- Mexico
- South Africa
- South Korea
- Czechia
Group B
- Canada
- Bosnia-Herzegovina
- Qatar
- in Switzerland
Group C
- Brazil
- Morocco
- Haiti
- In Scotland
Group D
- USA
- Paraguay
- Australia
- garlic
Group E
- In Germany
- Curacao
- Ivory Coast
- In Ecuador
Group F
- In the Netherlands
- Japan
- in Sweden
- Tunisia
Group G
- In Belgium
- Egypt
- Iran
- New Zealand
Group H
- Spain
- Cape Verde
- Saudi Arabia
- In Uruguay
Group I
- France
- in Senegal
- Iraq
- in Norway
Group J
- In Argentina
- Algeria
- In Austria
- Jordan
Group K
- In Portugal
- DR Congo
- Uzbekistan
- Colombia
Group L
- In England
- Croatia
- Ghana
- in Panama
